I do have plans for establishing a b'fly garden next year, but I've been trying to get to that plan for 2 years now so only time will tell. You might want to check out this forum: http://garden.org/forums/view/butterflies/ ?

Hi & welcome! If you're in Z8 in FL, you may be nearby, in the panhandle area? I'm 80 miles north of Destin.

Asclepias incarnata has a wonderful scent.

Using the advanced search features here (selecting fragrant and attracts butterflies,) it pulled up over 1,600 results. I tried to paste the URL to that completed search but it's not showing up correctly in preview. Should be easy to repeat at your end (fragrant is under the heading of "flowers" and attracts butterflies is farther down, under "wildlife attractant":http://garden.org/plants/search/advanced.php

Some plants that attract bees & butterflies like crazy don't get much credit for it, like basil & Coleus. You can't go wrong with Zinnias.

(I think Lantana smells great!)

👀😁😂 - SMILE! -☺😎☻☮👌✌∞☯🐣🐦🐔🐝🍯🐾
🍀👒☀🍄🍍🌱🌿🌴🎄👣🌵🌷⚘🌹🌻🌽🏡🍃🍂🌾🌿🍁❦❧ 🍃🍁🍂🌾🌻🌺🌸🌼🌹🌳🌲
☕👓 The only way to succeed is to try.

For both. I love butterflies and fragrant flowers. I want to have step stones and a bench to sit and watch the butterflies. I will definitely check it out.

Thank you

Weedwhacker said:Karen -- fragrant for the butterflies or for you?
I do have plans for establishing a b'fly garden next year, but I've been trying to get to that plan for 2 years now so only time will tell. You might want to check out this forum: http://garden.org/forums/view/butterflies/ ?

From past experience of having to dig out a wayward patch of some kind of Buddleia sold as 'Blue Chips,' (but didn't really look like other pics of plants by that name, so I never believed that's what it was,) I'd say to avoid the BB's that aren't sterile cultivars. (It had droopy, washed-out looking blooms.) If they're seedy, they're weedy, IME.

The well-behaved one I've kept moving around with me for the past 25 or so years is a wonderful plant that butterflies do love, no seeds.

My area is more dry and hot during late Spring to Summer, and Butterflies that make it to my garden seem to have a color preference rather than scent preference: It is fun to watch them as they make their specific choices
Eastern Swallowtail and Monarch Butterflies love my Asclepias currasavica:
With or without blooms this Monarch kept coming back to Asclepias currasavica

Eastern swallowtail seems to like to see yellow& red and bluish/purplish and white blooms:
On our yarrow

If you do plant Milkweed (any of the Asclepias mentioned above) remember that it is not only a nectar plant for butterflies, it is also a host plant for the monarch larvae, so all the leaves will get eaten up at some point. Since it's not awfully attractive after this happens, it's a good idea to interplant it with something else, like Gaillardias (which are also nectar plants). The clumps of Gaillardia will hide the bare stems of the Milkweed until they manage to leaf out again.

Buddleia is a great butterfly plant and smells good to humans, too. There are several different colors available that don't set seeds.

Elaine

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." –Winston Churchill

@purpleinopp Tiffany...if you have a chance to visit me again, kaykay is around the corner from me. You pass her before me....come visit, we'll have a plant party. kaykay when you are here for coffee tomorrow remind me and I will give you seeds from my butterfly weed (NOT bush) The bflys love it. We will have to collabarate on bfly gardens...plants divided by 2....twice the fun...half the cost

Good point about host plants being eaten, Elaine! If one doesn't like the "chewed" look, doing nectar plants that aren't also hosts is a good idea (though something else like slugs or armyworms are always a possibility for those too.)

Aww, what a sweet offer, Gin, TYVM! After moving last year, I've done little in the way of perennials here yet, having had to dig & smother grass to get started at all. Then I promptly filled those areas with tropicals that I'm soon going to be trying to squeeze inside for winter. Between my Mom's yard (where I stuck most of the plants I'd dug up to keep from the other yard before we moved,) and potted tropicals, I might have enough stuff that other people would want, and possibly don't already have, by spring. Without me on-scene to water stuff when it didn't rain the past couple summers, it's taken the stuff I moved to Mom's a LONG time to recover.

You've been on my mind lately. Remember giving me a Plumeria cutting? It didn't seem happy in its' pot last summer so I put it in the ground this spring too. Now it's a small tree, almost 5 ft. tall with several big branches and buds on it! DH is going to build me a little shelter for it for cold nights, it's too big to come inside! So excited!

I've also continued its' "was-gifted" tradition and sent a cutting to someone else in FL where it can live in the ground fulltime without worry. That's a piece of plant with a story to tell!

👀😁😂 - SMILE! -☺😎☻☮👌✌∞☯🐣🐦🐔🐝🍯🐾
🍀👒☀🍄🍍🌱🌿🌴🎄👣🌵🌷⚘🌹🌻🌽🏡🍃🍂🌾🌿🍁❦❧ 🍃🍁🍂🌾🌻🌺🌸🌼🌹🌳🌲
☕👓 The only way to succeed is to try.

COOL Tiffany....I remember you wanting it but unsure...I'm so happy it did well for you...it looks very happy in the pic you posted. Enjoy the blooms. What method did you use to get it going?? Sent kaykay home with two (?) cuttings and I gave her 3 options what to do. I know she is all to know

purpleinopp said:Hi & welcome! If you're in Z8 in FL, you may be nearby, in the panhandle area? I'm 80 miles north of Destin.

Asclepias incarnata has a wonderful scent.

Using the advanced search features here (selecting fragrant and attracts butterflies,) it pulled up over 1,600 results. I tried to paste the URL to that completed search but it's not showing up correctly in preview. Should be easy to repeat at your end (fragrant is under the heading of "flowers" and attracts butterflies is farther down, under "wildlife attractant":http://garden.org/plants/search/advanced.php

Some plants that attract bees & butterflies like crazy don't get much credit for it, like basil & Coleus. You can't go wrong with Zinnias.

purpleinopp said:From past experience of having to dig out a wayward patch of some kind of Buddleia sold as 'Blue Chips,' (but didn't really look like other pics of plants by that name, so I never believed that's what it was,) I'd say to avoid the BB's that aren't sterile cultivars. (It had droopy, washed-out looking blooms.) If they're seedy, they're weedy, IME.

The well-behaved one I've kept moving around with me for the past 25 or so years is a wonderful plant that butterflies do love, no seeds.

Thank you so much. Those are absolutely beautiful. I know have an Idea of how and what I would loke to plant.

tarev said:My area is more dry and hot during late Spring to Summer, and Butterflies that make it to my garden seem to have a color preference rather than scent preference: It is fun to watch them as they make their specific choices
Eastern Swallowtail and Monarch Butterflies love my Asclepias currasavica:
With or without blooms this Monarch kept coming back to Asclepias currasavica

Eastern swallowtail seems to like to see yellow& red and bluish/purplish and white blooms:
On our yarrow